We visited Alabama, thinking it would be our front-runner. You hear so much good about Alabama on CC! Ultimately, my daughter thought it would be okay, but did not meet our maybe-too-high expectations because:
- Found out that the amazing dorms are really only available for Freshman. After that, you almost have to live off-campus. We wanted to avoid needing a car, etc.
- The Honors community wasn’t as tightly-knit as hoped. The CBH kids are awesome! This is my daughter’s “tribe”, and she would only want to attend Alabama if she were accepted to CBH.
- There are many beautiful new buildings on campus, but the classrooms where my daughter would be spending most of her time (Math major) were older, crowded hallways, musty.
- The math advisor was a nice guy, but the business advisor would only show us checklists of recommended class sequences for various majors/minors. It was really just a job for him; get the kids through the classes.
But when we visited Oklahoma, EVERY SINGLE advisor we met (Math, Business, Econ, Physics, Honors, National Schoalrs) was super enthusiastic about their program, and shared lots of information about the various opportunities. They knocked it out of the park. All of students we talked to had at least one professor that they “gushed” about. My daughter will be a freshman this year, so we don’t really know how it will all work out. But so far we have been really impressed with how they’ve handled registration question, scheduling conflicts, issues with credit transfers and prerequisites, etc. So helpful… everything is handled quickly and easily, even if it means pulling strings to get things done. Having advising staff just for the National Scholars kids is awesome.